Into the Mountains

"The reward of suffering is experience" - Harry S. Truman

Sunday followed Saturday, but that was all that it shared in common for me. On Saturday, I woke up early, and then went and sat on the beach all day, yet on Sunday, I woke up late, and then walked/hiked for pretty much the rest of the day.


Where to begin. After getting some much needed rest, I left my house around 130 pm, to walk to the south side of Granada to catch a bus to the pueblo of Monachil. Monachil is in the mountains about 6 miles south of Granada, and there is a bus that goes there frequently, except for Sundays. On Sundays, it only goes to Monachil three times, in the morning, at 230, and at 845. The bus ride was good, although we stopped in the middle of nowhere, which caused me some confusion (we were early and had to wait for passengers). Once we started moving again I began growing apprehensive of making the bus that would be coming back 6 hours later. I realize that 6 hours is alot of time, but by the time I got off the bus I was down to 5 and a half, and I wasn't sure the time the bus driver gave me was the right time. This reason was because the website I had used to find the bus in the first place had said the bus came back at 8pm, yet he told me 845. All of a sudden, I thought maybe he meant a quarter till 8, and I just wasn't translating what he had said correctly. This caused me many problems, but I will go into those later. In Monachil, I followed the signs looking for the trail that was labeled as easy online. It was to Los Cahorros, a river gorge area that was very beautiful. On my hike, the path was very small in places, and I passed a large amount of rock climbers, as you can see in my pictures. Eventually I had enough of the low path though, and I strayed off onto one that began leading up the mountain. At this point I was roughly one hour into my hike and I figured that I had at least another 1 - 1.5 hours before I needed to turn back. Well I kept going up, and eventually I decided that I wanted to summit the mountain that was in the distance, so I took a fork in the trail that looked like it went the right way and started in that direction. I can tell you this, all of the walking that I have done these past two weeks did not prepare me for hiking. This trail seemed to go up at a very rapid ascension rate, and soon I was up into the trees that surrounded the upper levels of the mountain. I kept chugging up, even after I had ran out of water, realizing I may have been unprepared for the rigors of this adventure. Then I hit a fire road, and there was a sign ahead that said roughly translated, no access permited. I debated this no access permitted for a while, and eventually decided that since it was now 545, and that I had started this hike at 315, that it was necessary that I turn around. So I turned around, and retraced my steps back. I reached the fork I had been at earlier and decided to go left instead of right, and headed back towards Monachil on a new trail. This trail came out very close to the city, saving me nearly an hour, but I had to go around all kinds of houses that were out in this valley to get back. This slowed me down some but I still arrived back in oMnachil in only 1 hour and 15 minutes. I cut my time in half. A local told me that the bus would not be there until 845, and I came to another crossroads, walk home, or wait. Do the apprehensive thing, or the spanish thing.
I decided that I was built for walking, so I would walk. So at 7:05 on a Sunday night I began the 12km walk to my home in Granada. It was a very nice walk I would say, and for at least half of it I had sidewalk. The views were nice though. I ended up getting back into Granada just around 815, which is when everyone begins to go outside to meet in the streets, and I arrived back at my apartment at around 850pm. I think I saved roughly 30 minutes by walking back early which is why I am glad I tried it. I dont know if I will ever know how much I walked that day, but it was at least 13 miles, and I am sure more like 15+. The hike was great, although in the future I hope to do this hike again and reach the mountains summit.